…49 Afrikaners arrived in the United States on Monday May 12 as “refugees.” President Trump gave them priority status, which means they waited no more than three months for their resettlement. Many refugees from other countries are forced to wait 18 to 24 months, and sometimes even years, for their resettlement assignment. Trump banned virtually all other refugees on his first day in office, including people fleeing active war zones like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and others.
White South Africans have made unsubstantiated claims of reverse racism and genocide, which have been echoed by Trump.
Since taking office, Donald Trump’s administration has virtually shut down refugee admissions and blocked funding for resettlement groups, stranding thousands of people who were granted entry to the United States for humanitarian protections only to have those offers rescinded.
But the president has singled out one specific group of people who will be allowed entry into the United States and appear to be on a fast track to citizenship: white South Africans.
A group of 59 white South Africans admitted to the United States as “refugees” have been “essentially extended citizenship,” Trump said on Monday.
A group of South Africans are welcomed by Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau at Washington Dulles International Airport on May 12 (Getty Images)
They were greeted by State Department officials on Monday after landing at Washington Dulles International Airport on a taxpayer-funded flight following their fast-tracked refugee vetting process under the administration’s radically reshaped admissions program.
The president claims white South Africans are victims of “genocide,” echoing a white supremacist conspiracy theory alleging immigration and forced assimilation threaten the existence of white people — a claim that has fueled racist hate and violence against minority groups as well as parallel conspiracy theories like the so-called “great replacement” theory.
Trump and his Republican allies have routinely amplified a bogus “great replacement” theory that claims Democratic officials are allowing immigrants into the country to manipulate elections. The idea is behind Trump’s anti-immigration agenda as well his executive orders and legislation in Congress taking aim at voter registration and election administration.
“When it comes to race and immigration issues, the Trump administration is about as subtle as an air raid,” America’s Voice executive director Vanessa Cárdenas said in a statement to The Independent.
“While they single out white Afrikaners for special treatment and resettlement, they falsely slander Black and brown refugees and immigrants as dangerous threats and ‘invaders’ — including those who have been vetted with background checks — despite all of the statistical evidence to the contrary,” she added. “It’s inherently hypocritical and ugly, but unfortunately par for the course for this administration.”
The president has previously compared efforts from the South African government to combat racial inequalities from apartheid to anti-white discrimination, and South African officials have accused the administration of using claims from white Afrikaners to undermine the country’s genocide case against Israel now before the International Court of Justice.
White Afrikaners, descendants of Europeans who arrived in the country centuries ago, claim to have been denied jobs and become targets of violence for their race — claims that exploded with new legislation regulating property expropriation.
Viral misinformation claimed dozens of daily murders of white farmers. But it’s been estimated that roughly 50 farmers total, from all racial groups, were killed annually in a country that recorded more than 19,000 murders between January and September 2024.
Still, Trump announced in February he was cutting off funding to South Africa — most of which goes to efforts to combat HIV/AIDS — because the government was “confiscating land” and “treating certain classes of people very badly.”
Trump’s adviser Elon Musk — born to a wealthy family in Pretoria — called South Africa’s property law “openly racist” and accused a Black nationalist political party of “actively promoting white genocide.”
White farmers own roughly 70 percent of commercial farmland in the country despite white South Africans making up about 7 percent of the population. Fewer than 150 attacks involving farmers occurred during the entirety of 2023, according to the Afrikaaner political group AfriForum.
Trump claimed white South Africans are victims of ‘genocide’ as he defended his administration granting them refugee status while stripping refugee admissions for virtually all other groups (REUTERS)
Shortly after taking office, the Trump administration froze refugee admissions, blocking people fleeing famine and war from countries like Afghanistan, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Within just two days of Trump’s inauguration, resettlement groups were blindsided by the administration’s order to suspend all refugee entries and cancel all flights for incoming refugees — even for thousands of people who were already cleared for entry with U.S. sponsorships and support from families and aid groups.
In February, the administration also abruptly announced plans to terminate contracts with refugee resettlement and assistance groups 24 hours after a federal judge ordered the government to restore funding to aid organizations.
Brief messages from the State Department told refugee groups that their contracts were “terminated for the convenience of the U.S. Government pursuant to a directive” from Secretary of State Marco Rubio for “alignment with agency priorities and the national interest.”
Other messages told aid groups that funding is “immediately terminated” because it “no longer effectuates agency priorities,” according to court filings and statements to The Independent.
Earlier this month, a federal court ordered the administration to put forward a plan for resettling roughly 12,000 refugees who had flights booked for the United States when Trump’s refugee ban was announced. The lead plaintiff in that case, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was approved for resettlement and scheduled to travel to the United States on January 22 with his wife and baby son.
“Refugee resettlement existed as a successful bipartisan humanitarian program for decades until President Trump suspended resettlement through a cruel and unlawful Executive Order on day one of his administration,” International Refugee Assistance Project senior supervising attorney Melissa Keaney said in a statement to The Independent.
“Refugees, including those who were already approved and scheduled to travel to the United States, had their dreams of a new beginning ripped from them, leaving them in an uncertain and unsafe limbo,” she added. “Admitting Afrikaners through a fast and efficient process while ignoring multiple court orders to process refugees who have been waiting for years to restart their lives in safety represents yet another attempt to politicize refugee resettlement by the Trump administration.”
The same day Trump announced the arrival of white South African refugees, the administration stripped temporary protected status for Afghans already in the United States, formally lifting a shield that protects them from being deported.
The administration argues that conditions in the Taliban-run country no longer merit protections for their stay in the United States.
Asked on Monday why white South Africans are the exception, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau told reporters that criteria for refugee admissions include whether they can be “assimilated easily into our country.”
“The president has recognized the dire situation for this particular group of people,” he said.
Tshishiku Henry, a former refugee and Washington State Delegate for the Refugee Congress, speaks during a rally outside a federal courthouse after a judge blocked Trump’s effort to halt the nation’s refugee admissions system in February (AP)
Asked why he carved out refugee admissions for a group of white South Africans while suspending resettlement for all other vulnerable groups, Trump told reporters: “Because they’re being killed, and we don’t want to see people killed.”
“It’s a genocide that’s taking place that you people don’t want to write about,” he told reporters on Monday.
“Farmers are being killed. They happen to be white. But whether they’re white or Black makes no difference to me. But white farmers are being brutally killed and their land is being confiscated in South Africa,” according to Trump. “I don’t care who they are. I don’t care who they are. I don’t care about their race, their color, I don’t care about their height, their weight.”
Refugees typically cover the cost of their own travel to the United States through interest-free loans that must be paid back. But the State Department-chartered flight that brought a group of South Africans to the United States comes at taxpayers’ expense.
“Thousands of refugees have been thrust into limbo after clearing an extensive vetting process, including Afghan allies, religious minorities, and other families facing extreme persecution,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of national refugee settlement nonprofit group Global Refuge, said in a statement to The Independent.
“As we see the system restart, it’s imperative that the U.S. government act to welcome all refugees who meet longstanding legal standards, regardless of their nationality,” she said.
Extensive interviews with Benicia Mayor Steve Young and others
Benicia Mayor Steve Young drives by the Valero Benicia Refinery in Benicia on May 8, 2025, which processes up to 170,000 barrels of oil a day, making gasoline, diesel and other fuels for California. The refinery accounts for nearly 20% of the city’s tax base, and its expected shutdown could have a catastrophic impact on the city’s financial health. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Benicia Mayor Steve Young poked at his shrimp Louie salad as he glanced wistfully out the window of a local seafood restaurant perched on the banks of an unusually serene stretch of the Carquinez Strait.
“I’ve had better months. Let’s put it that way,” he said.
Young, 73, looked grateful for the lunch break. He has been deep in damage control mode since last month, when Texas-based oil giant Valero, the city’s largest employer, announced plans to “idle, restructure or cease” operations at its Benicia refinery within a year.
In a recent earnings call, Valero CEO Lane Riggs cited California’s tough “regulatory and enforcement environment” as the main driver behind the company’s intent to close California’s sixth-largest refinery, accounting for about 9% of the state’s total production.
The refinery makes up nearly 20% of Benicia’s tax base, and shutting down the facility, which dominates much of the eastern side of this small, relatively affluent Solano County city, could have a catastrophic impact on the city’s financial well-being.
“We’re in a situation where we’re going to have $10 (million) to $12 million less than last year,” said Young, a tall, gray-haired man with a gravelly voice. “The hit on the community is going to be severe. My main job is to ease that transition as much as we can.”
Benicia is known as a “full-service city,” he said, “which means we do every conceivable municipal service there is.” That’s part of what makes this community of well-kept yards and century-old homes feel so safe and pleasant, with its abundance of parks, libraries and subsidized artists’ studios.
Benicia Mayor Steve Young sits in the City Hall offices in Benicia on May 8, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
But a decent portion of those amenities are funded, in part, by the property taxes Valero pays the city — leaving Young with the unenviable task of recommending which services to potentially cut, whether it’s the public pool, the summer concert series or even the dog poop bag dispensers in the parks.
“Anything we cut has a passionate base,” Young said, grimacing slightly in anticipation of the inevitable budgeting battles to come.
Shutting down the refinery, he added, would also be a major blow to the hundreds of residents who work there, not to mention the restaurants, hotels and businesses in the city’s industrial park that provide services to the facility and its workers, as well as the many local nonprofits that have long depended on Valero’s donations.
Valero didn’t respond to KQED’s multiple requests for comments for this story.
Young rose to local political prominence nearly a decade ago by pushing back against the company’s strong influence in a place many here consider a “refinery town.”
Months after Valero was hit with a record $82 million fine by air regulators, the company said it would ‘idle, restructure, or cease operations’ in Benicia by the end of April 2026. (Craig Miller/KQED)
In 2016, Young, a former local government administrator, stepped out of retirement to join the planning commission, where he successfully led the opposition against the company’s proposal to start bringing in crude oil by rail.
At the time, Valero was accustomed to being “the big dog in town,” and expected the City Council to rubber stamp the proposal, much like it had for many of the company’s other requests, Young said.
“They had been joined at the hip,” he said. “Valero was used to having things slide through.”
So it came as a shock to the company when the City Council voted down the proposal, citing major public safety and congestion concerns about having a constant flow of trains bringing volatile materials through town.
“That was a big deal. It kind of set the tone,” said Young, who went on to win a seat on the Council later that year. He successfully ran for mayor in 2020, despite intense opposition from Valero, which spent some $250,000 in attack ads and campaign mailers opposing him.
Two years later, voters elected two additional candidates to the five-member Council — Kari Birdseye and Terry Scott — who, like Young, pledged to stand up to Valero when its actions compromised public safety.
The Valero Benicia Refinery in Benicia, on May 8, 2025, processes up to 170,000 barrels of oil a day, making gasoline, diesel and other fuels for California. Valero plans to shut down the Benicia refinery by April 2026, citing high costs and strict environmental rules. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
But Young and his allies now find themselves in the awkward position of beseeching the very company they’ve challenged to stick around — at least for a few more years — to buy the city more time to prepare.
“We need to get moving on this quickly, because 12 months is not a long time given the severity of the economic impact,” Young said, acknowledging that his bargaining chips are limited.
One option, he said, is appealing directly to the state to ease some of the regulations that Valero finds so burdensome. Young appreciates California’s efforts to address climate change, but he questions the practicality of the current approach, especially when it results in frontline communities like his losing their refineries and being forced to suddenly fend for themselves.
“I understand these are necessary steps going forward,” he said. “But the state passes many laws without any consequence or understanding of how they’re going to be implemented and who’s going to have to pay for it. That’s, I think, part of my frustration as a local official.”
Young said he intends to make the case that closing the refinery could pose a national security threat, as it’s currently the sole provider of jet fuel to nearby Travis Air Force Base, which is delivered via a direct pipeline.
“If that is stopped, what does that mean to the base?” Young said. “Travis uses an amazing amount of fuel to fly all their planes, much more than can be easily replaced and certainly not replaced within a year. So I think that this becomes a matter of real concern to the defense department.”
There’s also a possibility that the 900 total acres of land Valero owns, which has unobstructed views of the scenic bluffs and straits that funnel into the mouth of the Sacramento Delta, could be redeveloped into housing and commercial property. Oakland-based Signature Development Group recently announced it was in talks with the company.
Doing so, however, would require a costly remediation effort — one Valero is legally required to do — that would likely take a decade to complete before any development takes place, Young said.
“This would be a good long-term development — to have an outside entity pressing Valero to do the remediation,” Young said. “But in the meantime, we’re not going to have any money at all coming in.”
The city may ultimately need to ask for another tax increase, Young said — a request he believes voters in the city, many of whom have lived here for decades and pay low property taxes, will approve.
A mural depicts downtown Benicia in the city on May 8, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
“It may come down to that,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to cut our way to $10 (million) or $12 million and maintain any level of similar services.”
Downtown Benicia has a quaint, small-town feel that belies its proximity to San Francisco, less than 40 miles south. Drivers turning off Interstate 780 are greeted by a sign for an American Legion rib cookoff before passing a large white gazebo in a small park on the edge of downtown. The main drag is filled with restaurants, cafes and galleries.
A monument in a nearby park reminds visitors that Benicia was once the state capital — though only for a year, in 1853.
From many vantage points in this charming city of some 27,000 residents on the outer edge of the Bay Area, it’s easy to forget the refinery is there at all, its stacks, holding tanks and billowing steam hidden from view.
Valero, which has operated the nearly 60-year-old Benicia refinery since buying it from Exxon in 2000, dropped its bombshell announcement on April 16, roughly six months after regional and state air regulators fined the company a record $82 million for secretly exceeding toxic emissions standards for more than 15 years.
Last month, city leaders unanimously approved modest rules to increase their oversight of the refinery, despite staunch opposition from the company.
“ If you keep poking that golden goose, one day it’s going to fly away,” Mark Hughes, a former council member, said during a packed Council meeting in March ahead of the vote. “And that’s not a threat, that’s not any inside information I have about Valero. It’s just the likely outcome of a company that constantly feels that it’s being pushed away.”
The timing of Valero’s closure announcement, less than two weeks later, sparked speculation that the industrial safety ordinance was the final straw for the company.
Attorney Terry Mollica stands outside his home in Benicia on May 8, 2025, near the Valero Benicia Refinery. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
According to Terry Mollica, who helped lead a group of residents that pushed for the city’s new safety rules, the ordinance is a significantly watered-down version of the original. It merely requires the company to conduct internal reviews following safety incidents and disclose findings to the city, which can then request upgrades if public safety is at risk.
“The ISO, at least the version that was adopted, couldn’t possibly require them to do that much that they would close down a $1.2 billion facility,” he said. “Now, it’s possible that that was part of the reason, but that scenario only makes sense if there was something very seriously wrong with the refinery that they didn’t want disclosed.”
There are serious risks that come from living with a refinery in your backyard, Mollica said, noting the exposure to toxic emissions.
“It’s a great little town and a great little community, and we love living here. But that is the one negative about being here,” he said.
That risk was underscored last week when a major fire ignited at the facility after part of a furnace stack broke off and struck other equipment in a gasoline production area, according to the company’s incident report. The fire sent black plumes of smoke into the air and prompted a brief shelter-in-place order for surrounding neighborhoods.
Attorney Terry Mollica holds a photo on his phone at his home in Benicia on May 8, 2025, of a flare at the Valero Benicia Refinery seen from his neighborhood. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
The incident followed a multi-day blaze in January at PBF Energy’s Martinez Refining Co., just across the strait.
“I spend a lot of time in the garden, and when these incidents occur, you’re not allowed to go outside. You just don’t know what you’re being exposed to. The history of it has been bad.”
But Danny Bernardini, business manager of the Napa-Solano Building & Construction Trades Council — a group of 15 unions that represent hundreds of boilermakers, laborers, plumbers and steamfitters, many of whom work intermittently at the refinery — thinks the company grew weary of the regulations “pile-on.”
“California is the toughest place to have a refinery. And so at some point they have to say, ‘Does this make business sense for us to stay in California or not?’” Bernardini said. “And I think their announcement was them saying, ‘We can’t do business like this.’”
The facility’s likely closure comes amid a growing exodus of traditional oil refiners in California, raising serious concerns about potential gas shortages and rising prices at the pump.
Apprentices work on a project at the Heat and Frost Insulators Local 16 Training Center in Benicia on May 9, 2025. The training center teaches apprentices to install and maintain insulation systems that conserve energy and protect equipment, skills that are essential for safe and efficient operations in refineries and other industrial facilities. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Phillips 66’s refinery in Rodeo and Marathon’s facility in Martinez both recently converted operations to biofuel production. Phillips 66 also plans to close its Los Angeles-area refinery — the seventh largest in the state — later this year. And Valero executives recently hinted they may soon consider “strategic alternatives” for the company’s only other California refinery located near Los Angeles.
“Until there’s an alternative to refineries, we need to keep them,” Bernardini said. “And yes, they need to be safe. They need to not pollute. They need not have incidents. But at the same time, they’re a necessary thing right now because everybody drives in a car.”
He said the workers in his unions are highly skilled technicians who have relied on consistent jobs at the Valero refinery, but many of their skills don’t transfer to other industries.
“Refinery work is very specific to their trade,” he said.
That specialization is on full display at the Heat & Frost Insulators Local 16 apprenticeship facility in Benicia, just down the road from the refinery’s towering stacks.
Coordinator Jonathan Blaine stands in the workshop at the Heat and Frost Insulators Local 16 Training Center in Benicia on May 9, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
“For any pipe, duct or vessel that has to maintain a specific temperature, we’re going to insulate those to stay that temperature within the pipe,” said Jonathan Blaine, the apprenticeship coordinator, as about a dozen apprentices practiced on piping models in the classroom.
Apprentices, he said, have to train for 8,000 hours before contractors can hire them. It’s difficult, sometimes dangerous work, but it pays upward of $80 an hour.
“Everybody says, ‘Hey, you need to go to college. That’s the only way that you can afford to live.’ And then you find out about the union building trades,” he said. “It offers a really good career path. You just have to work hard for it.”
But much of that is dependent on the refineries staying open.
“There’s a lot of man-hours that are worked in refineries throughout the year,” he said. “There’s been a lot of questions, and at this point, we don’t really know exactly what’s going to happen.”
Christian Ochoa, an apprentice from Fairfield specializing in installation, said he chose the career path because it would allow him to provide for his two kids and “live a comfortable life” without having to hold down multiple jobs.
Tyler Fleming (left) and Levi Humphries, both 5th-year apprentices, work on a project at the Heat and Frost Insulators Local 16 Training Center in Benicia on May 9, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Ochoa said he’s confident he’ll still be able to find work at power plants and other industrial facilities if the refinery closes. But he said the news is still disheartening.
“I can see this whole town collapsing, man. A lot of people from around this area work there,” he said. “Less work for us.”
Young is more optimistic, despite the severe budget shortfall that the city will likely soon be forced to confront. If Valero skips town, there will no doubt be some short-term pain, he acknowledged. But that may be worth the price of no longer having to live in the shadow of a refinery.
Losing the refinery would force Benicia to diversify its economy, which “would certainly be a healthier thing for the city,” Young said.
“We have the highest rate of asthma and the highest rate of cancer in Solano County, which is not something that you would typically expect in a city that also has the highest income and the highest education levels,” he said. “So I think from a health perspective, we would be better off.”
May 5 – The fire comes just weeks after Valero executives announced they were considering closing the sprawling refinery by next April. (Including quotes by Larnie Fox and Pat Toth-Smith of Benicia.)
Benicia Contends With Valero Refinery Closure
We talk about the possible closure of the Benicia Valero refinery and what it means for our region. (Guests include Benicia Mayor Steve Young)
‘Shocking News’: Valero Announces Plans to End Operations at Benicia Refinery
Apr 21 – Last week, the oil giant Valero announced that it will “idle, restructure, or cease operations” at its Benicia refinery that employs more than 400 workers. (Including comments of Benicia City Councilmember Kari Birdseye.)
Oil Giant Valero Looks to Shutter Troubled Bay Area Refinery. It’s ‘a Big Surprise’
Months after Valero was hit with a record $82 million fine by air regulators, the company said it would ‘idle, restructure, or cease operations’ in Benicia by the end of April 2026. (Quotes by Benicia Mayor Steve Young and Benicia City Councilmember Kari Birdseye.)
Benicia City Council gives preliminary approval to an ordinance that could create a citizen’s oversight panel and allow the city to issue fines for safety and air-quality violations. (Quotes by Benicia attorney-activist Terry Mollica, Benicia City Councilmember Kari Birdseye and several other Benicians.)
By Stephen Golub, Benicia resident and author, “Benicia and Beyond” column in the Benicia Herald, May 11, 2025
The May 5 fire at Valero’s Benicia refinery was yet another reminder of the price Benicia has paid for a facility that, despite the fine work of its personnel, can loom like an accident (or explosion) waiting to happen. The refinery’s presence has often seemed like a trade-off between health and safety on the one hand and employment and economic conditions on the other. Many of us have deep concerns (which I share) about what its planned closure will mean for Valero workers and local businesses.
Many of us have also told ourselves that we’re stuck between a financial rock and a health-and-safety hard place: If Valero somehow stays, we face the ongoing threat of toxic emissions, fires and even huge blasts at a facility that processes roughly 20,000 tons of flammable fuel per day and that may reduce costly investments in upkeep as its presence sooner or later comes to an end. If Valero goes, we lose perhaps $10 million of Valero-generated revenue from our annual $60 million budget.
Here’s one possibility that helps Benicia build a bridge to a clean, prosperous future: Negotiate with BAAD (what an acronym!) to establish a fund that allows the City to allocate the fine to help close the looming $10 million annual budget gap over the next eight years. Unless we can address that gap properly, it could devastate City police, fire or other services. (Note: The fine isn’t simply handed over to Benicia; the decision on how to spend it rests with the Air District.) This Bridge to the Future Fund – or Transition Fund, Sustainability Fund, Clean Air Fund, or whatever we might call it – could narrow or close the gap.
Presumably, in order to be consistent with the Air District’s mission, the Fund would focus on those parts of the City budget that fall under the rubrics of clean air or public health – or perhaps even sustainability or related priorities.
Here’s how the admittedly crude and very preliminary math for the Fund would work out in what, at this point, is but a rudimentary sketch rather than an actual plan:
In Year One, Benicia begins to prepare for Life After Valero but doesn’t yet draw extensively on the Fund, as revenues should remain relatively steady. In Years Two through Eight, it devotes $8 million annually toward closing the budget gap (totaling $56 million over that seven-year period), while either cutting $2 million per year or raising part of that through new fees or taxes. Obviously, the figures and time period could be adjusted due to various circumstances.
During those eight years, the City would move toward replacing the Valero revenue gap with new sources of income. The oil giant itself could conceivably help in this regard, via its current arrangement with the Signature Development Group, a major Bay Area real estate firm, to explore alternative uses of the land. Those uses could include residential, commercial and industrial developments. (Bear in mind here that portions of Valero’s 900 acres of land could host residential development without extensive clean-up, in that much of that land is open space beyond where the refinery operates.)
Now, there’s the possibility that contracting with the developer is just a temporary tactic Valero is using to negotiate with California to extract concessions favorable to keeping the refinery open. But we can’t operate on that assumption.
A few questions flow from the Bridge to the Future Fund idea:
First, is there even $8 million in the annual City budget that could be devoted to regular expenditures relevant to the Air District’s clean air and public health priorities? I’d guess the answer is yes. Recreational expenses, for starters. In addition, the Air District’s recent public survey asking how to spend fines (not just Valero’s) – unfortunately, the survey was underpublicized and is now closed to comment – contemplated fire services as one potential use. So, there may well be considerable flexibility in using the Fund as a source for 13 percent ($8 million) of our $60 million annual budget.
Next, would the Air District even go for this? Well, why not? I understand that it is sounding flexible. And whatever policies it currently has in place – and remember, BAAD is in the process of defining or refining them – could be interpreted or revised to allow the Fund as a recipient of the $56 million fine. Benicia Mayor Steve Young sits on the BAAD board. And while he’s just one voice among many in that large body, it could well be that other Bay Area officials belonging to the Board would favor a flexible policy for the use of other fines benefiting their own localities.
What if Valero decides to stay? Even if that’s the case, we can’t remain dependent on the calculations, whims and winds emanating from its San Antonio headquarters. It could still close the facility whenever it wants. For example, if the country and world sink into a recession this year, as many economists predict, that itself could lead Valero to leave.
Finally, do we want Valero to stay? That’s a much larger discussion. But, briefly for now: Bear in mind that Benicia must prepare for Valero to depart because it’s inevitable, whether next year or whether five or ten years down the line. And if we establish the Fund, it will not only sustain crucial City services; it will prevent the layoffs of numerous City employees who contribute to our town through their hard work and spending here.
Furthermore, if Valero goes, and Benicia employs the Fund to maintain the services that make this such a wonderful place to live, real estate values could climb: Many folks who would never consider moving here because of the refinery could well reconsider this as an excellent option. Tourism could also flourish as we transition to a post-Valero economy.
More broadly, we must start to build a more diversified economy now, rather than simply wish for Valero to remain here. For a thoughtful deeper dive on how Benicia can manage the financial transition, check out Dirk Fulton’s Benicia Independent piece that I previously mentioned.
The fire has affected my thinking about whether we want Valero to stay. Apparently, it occurred in a furnace related to a Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit, which has had repeated problems over the years. (Very useful information on the fire and the unit can also be found here, at The Benicia Independent.) When I contemplate the words “fire” and “repeated problems” together, I don’t feel confident about our community’s health and safety – especially in view of the refinery’s myriad issues.
Moreover, this incident had a number of worrisome ramifications: It put “elevated levels of pollutants, including fine particulate matter, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, and alkanes” into our air, according to news outlets; prompted a shelter-in-place announcement by the City; resulted in social media reports of negative health effects as well as numerous complaints of delays in folks finding out about the danger; and triggered several BAAD violation notices to Valero.
In any event, the point here is that we’re not powerless. We have a possible way of reducing or eliminating cuts to vital services even as we emerge from Valero’s lucrative but hazardous shadow. Ironically, the very facility that has put our health and safety at risk has also provided a potential bridge to a brighter future, via the $56 million fine.
I’m not saying that a Bridge to the Future Fund is necessarily the best or only way of spending that money. Maybe portions of the Valero fine could be used to help affected employees, businesses and nonprofits, for instance. Moreover, there are many other, worthwhile ideas afloat to help the City address the budget gap. There will be community-wide discussions about utilizing the fine and closing the gap in coming months.
In the meantime, you can still weigh in to urge BAAD to allow Benicia flexible use of the Valero fine funds by contacting the Air Districts’ Community Investments Office at communityinvestments@baaqmd.gov – preferably as soon as possible. And you can offer your thoughts on the proposed Fund or other uses of the Valero fine by contacting Mayor Young and the other City Council members via their emails at the City website.
Again, the notion of a Fund is only a sketch, not yet a plan. But we should consider it as we contemplate the inevitability, the potential and the promise of Life After Valero.
Full coverage in The New Republic…
You must be logged in to post a comment.